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The Golden Hand
A Cathedral is built in 14th-century England, in honor of a miracle
501 pages
First published January 1, 1952
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 23, 2022
Steinbeck’s East of Eden but make it Medieval. Some very punchable faces. Everyone dies.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 31, 2025
This book is like Middlemarch if it took place in the 1300’s plus witches and rebellions. Some quotes:
Pg.393: “We were singled out to see with our bodily eyes a vision of the Cathedral, all cathedrals, such as is usually granted only to the mind. In the midst of tempest darkness there is a light, and security; Man has a home; so we saw it. There before us rose the dim, vast, protective bulk, from which radiated light of fires lit to save our souls within our bodies; fragments of flame, seemingly liquid, sprayed out in sheaves, and in the white snow was laid with beautiful areas of ruby, amber, emerald, sapphire, where the thousands of candles shone through stained glass.”
Pg.424: “The moon light, knowing only black and white of all the hues, had created a strange landscape out of the familiar plots, playing with depth, here conjuring false chasms into innocent plains, there bridging hollows and erasing stumbling blocks. It was like a fantastic guessing game set for all comers: with black roses, bright silver cabbage leaves, soft-edged grey boughs and pitchy foliage, with hard white sparks over all, like holes in a window screen, of the dew that outshone the stars which it reflected. Clad as in colorless motley by an angular patchwork of light and shade, the jumble of cat-hunters was freed alike of solidity and the danger of individual recognition.”
Pg.472: “The whole pattern of life had been disturbed and, disintegrated, danced in a constant, hectic change of constellations, so that the very air seemed strange material, and nothing, however objective, visible or wonted, appeared as what it was. You did strange things and felt strange feelings, as any beings would, enchanted — themselves intrinsically unaltered — into a world so unknown one might have been transported to the moon or among the prodigies of the realms beneath the seas.”
Pg.479: “Many candles burned and fused their radiance with the sunlight entering by way of the Sanctus bell-cote; their sweet warm breath had lured a few bees inside, that gleamed golden as they floated, sinking, drugged, through the haze of incense.”
Pg.483: “If you have no Cause to defend, the stoutest defense work will not keep out fear, which will act for the assailants as another, invisible great weapon.”
Pg.488: “Every stone, every crumb of mortar, every lath and bole of this old stronghold stands for a drop of bloody sweat, a sigh, a tear, and unjust profit wrung from the lives of the weak. Let us level it to the ground, this monument of cruelty, lest it stand, a perpetual encouragement to would-be tyrants!”
Pg.393: “We were singled out to see with our bodily eyes a vision of the Cathedral, all cathedrals, such as is usually granted only to the mind. In the midst of tempest darkness there is a light, and security; Man has a home; so we saw it. There before us rose the dim, vast, protective bulk, from which radiated light of fires lit to save our souls within our bodies; fragments of flame, seemingly liquid, sprayed out in sheaves, and in the white snow was laid with beautiful areas of ruby, amber, emerald, sapphire, where the thousands of candles shone through stained glass.”
Pg.424: “The moon light, knowing only black and white of all the hues, had created a strange landscape out of the familiar plots, playing with depth, here conjuring false chasms into innocent plains, there bridging hollows and erasing stumbling blocks. It was like a fantastic guessing game set for all comers: with black roses, bright silver cabbage leaves, soft-edged grey boughs and pitchy foliage, with hard white sparks over all, like holes in a window screen, of the dew that outshone the stars which it reflected. Clad as in colorless motley by an angular patchwork of light and shade, the jumble of cat-hunters was freed alike of solidity and the danger of individual recognition.”
Pg.472: “The whole pattern of life had been disturbed and, disintegrated, danced in a constant, hectic change of constellations, so that the very air seemed strange material, and nothing, however objective, visible or wonted, appeared as what it was. You did strange things and felt strange feelings, as any beings would, enchanted — themselves intrinsically unaltered — into a world so unknown one might have been transported to the moon or among the prodigies of the realms beneath the seas.”
Pg.479: “Many candles burned and fused their radiance with the sunlight entering by way of the Sanctus bell-cote; their sweet warm breath had lured a few bees inside, that gleamed golden as they floated, sinking, drugged, through the haze of incense.”
Pg.483: “If you have no Cause to defend, the stoutest defense work will not keep out fear, which will act for the assailants as another, invisible great weapon.”
Pg.488: “Every stone, every crumb of mortar, every lath and bole of this old stronghold stands for a drop of bloody sweat, a sigh, a tear, and unjust profit wrung from the lives of the weak. Let us level it to the ground, this monument of cruelty, lest it stand, a perpetual encouragement to would-be tyrants!”
August 11, 2016
its awesome
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews